1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lighting device for use in vehicles.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, vehicle interior lighting devices have been provided at a variety of positions in vehicles. One known example of such lighting devices is a device which illuminates an inside handle provided on a vehicle door, thereby improving a user's operability of the inside handle and conveying a sense of luxury through lighting performance. The inside handle is disposed in a recessed housing part provided on a door trim, and this lighting device is disposed on a reverse side of a surface of an upper wall of the housing part. The lighting device emits light toward an inside of the housing part through a slit which penetrates the upper wall. In this way, the lighting device illuminates the inside of the housing part and the inside handle disposed on the inside of the housing part.
One of such conventionally known type lighting devices for illuminating an inside handle as mentioned above is disclosed in Patent Document 1. The lighting device of Patent Document 1 comprises a light source, a light guide which converts light from the light source to linear or planar light, and a case for covering a top and a side of the light guide. In the lighting device of Patent Document 1, light from the light source is guided to a light emitting surface at a bottom of the light guide by the light guide, and light emitted from the light emitting surface illuminates the inside handle.
In such a lighting device, a connector housing in which a lighting device connector is to be attached is placed outside of the case in order to secure a large light emitting surface area, because the connector housing is generally impenetrable to light. By the way, as is often the case with lighting devices for illuminating vehicle interiors, the lighting devices need to be placed within limited space. Therefore, taking space for attaching and removing the lighting device connector in consideration, the size of the lighting devices sometimes needs to be decreased. In this case, the decrease in the size of the lighting devices may lead to a restriction in the size of the light emitting surfaces of the lighting devices and cause the lighting devices' insufficient illumination of a lighting target area. On the other hand, a product can be reduced in size by housing the connector housing in the case of the lighting device, for example, by placing the light source and the lighting device connector on a reverse surface side of the light emitting surface. In this case, however, the connector housing blocks the light from the light source and prevents a sufficient amount of light from reaching the light emitting surface. As a result, the lighting device may be incapable of sufficiently illuminating a lighting target area.